the buddhist way into tibet 329
that in a future time the Teaching of the Buddha will spread and diffuse
to last [there] for a long time...^45In even later sources the bodhisattva-monkey himself is identi ed with
the bodhisattva Avalokitevara, so that in the end the Tibetan people
descend directly from Avalokitevara. The transformation of the wild,
untamed Tibetan people into civilised Buddhists is thus perfected.
Buddhism in the Tibetan cultural context always denotes civilisation,
whereas a people not yet buddhisised are considered wild and uncouth.
This juxtaposition is unfolded in many images in Tibetan sources. Tibet
as a paradisiacal garden is set against the wilderness of the southern
mountain slopes where wild people like the lHo-pa and the Mon-pa
lived and still live.
- Buddhist Missionary Strategies: the SRIN-MO
The Tibetan indigenous gods and goddesses were “tamed” by the
Buddhist masters who came to Tibet to promote the dharma. “Taming
the local gods and goddesses” in mythical speech explains the ritual
and symbolic transformation of the Tibetan landscape. Metaphorically
speaking, Tibet is transformed from a wilderness in the grip of ferocious
deities and demons into the garden landscape of a “buddha- eld”. In the
Mai-bka’-’bum the land is associated with the body of a srin-mo, a local
malevolent demoness, who has to be suppressed in order to establish
the new religion in Tibet. The Chinese bride of Srong-btsan-sgam-po
pronounced that a srin-mo, a she-demon, was responsible for the trouble
she experienced in order to get the precious image of the twelve-year-
old kyamuni to Lhasa. Moreover she predicted that the malevolent
in uence of the demon was responsible for the political instability
prevalent during that time in Tibet. The srin-mo, who was envisaged
as incorporated in the landscape, was successfully tamed by erecting
thirteen temples on her outstretched limbs. Her heart was nailed down
by building the Jo-khang on it, the most important temple in Lhasa,
the capital and heart of the country. By erecting Buddhist temples in
the Tibetan landscape the country was effectively “ma alised”. The
local deities and demons were subjugated and incorporated into the
Buddhist pantheon by acting as guardians of the superior Buddhist
(^45) Sørensen 1994, p. 129.